A real life story of what was meant to be enjoyable and relaxing, turned disastrous. Giving transferable strategies on how to deal with stress in all situations.

1. HOW TO HANDLE STRESS IN THE
OFFICE OR ON THE BEACH

2. RELAXING HOLIDAY TO INDIA AND THAILAND?
Recently I went on a 3 week holiday to India and Thailand
to relax – but unexpected events actually tested my stress
levels!
To set the scene, my husband and I were in the middle of
a property transaction which hadn’t been completed. We
were waiting for certain checks to come through while both
working extremely hard to manage business meetings, two
children and general household commitments – the
holiday couldn’t have come at a busier time!
Despite how busy we were to change our tickets would’ve
meant paying twice as much again!

3. BEST LAID PLANS AND ALL THAT!
We spent the first 3 days of our holiday trying to
complete and get the guarantees in place – in the
middle of all this my husband’s emails went down and
he was unable to make any calls.
After 3 days we hadn’t managed to get any further
forward and just when you think things couldn’t get
any worse, we received a call from the UK to say our
house had been burgled!

4. BURGLED
They had ripped the safe out by removing part of our
wall and radiator, stealing all of my gold jewellery and
my husband’s brand new AMG Mercedes – by the
way this is all true!
This happened on the day before we were flying to
Thailand – our first holiday without the kids in years
involved overcoming a crisis!

5. HOW DID WE COPE WITH OUR
STRESS?

6. DEEP BREATHS TO GET GROUNDED
After the initial shock and disbelief, it was important
for us to take a minute and breathe. It’s one of the
greatest stress relievers, and it costs nothing to make
you feel better! Yet we all too often forget right?

7. AVOID PROCRASTINATION
We teamed up and cancelled all our credit cards and
bank cards, while phoning our car and house
insurance.

8. USE YOUR SUPPORT NETWORK
We contacted family and friends to sort the house out
as best they could, such as tidying up and changing
the locks.

9. LESS REMORSE, MORE ACTION
Although easier said than done we quickly figured out
there was no point in worrying! Worry only causes
more stress so to keep focussed we set an action
plan and followed it through.

10. STAY IN THE MOMENT
Being in the moment as much as possible is a key
stress relief technique. We spend time thinking about
what has gone wrong or what will go wrong, yet all we
have to hang our hats on is the NOW! We can only
plan for the future and learn from the past – the
moment was all we had so we tried to enjoy the rest
of the day and had a wonderful dinner with family.

11. LISTEN TO OTHERS WISDOM
Our loved ones supported us and gave us words of
wisdom which we embraced and helped us feel better
about the situation.

12. APPRECIATE WHAT YOU HAVE
We felt so very grateful for all the help and the fact we
still had each other. Material things will come and go
– I was just so grateful that none of us were in the
house!

13. STRESS CAN HAVE A SILVER LINING
We still have each other and really that’s all that
matters to me. I believe that everything happens for a
reason because if we had no downs, how would we
experience the ups?
We will certainly take security more seriously in future
and I will always have the memories of my mother’s
jewellery regardless.

14. STRESS CAN HAVE A SILVER LINING
Life is colourful to enrich our learning, so what have I
learnt from this? I know it is cliché but every cloud
does have a silver lining.
This has certainly taught me more about the
importance of being in the now which I got to practice
while revaluating the priorities in my life! I thank life
for another experience to help me learn and expand
my own perception.

15. QUESTIONS
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